Stolen Moments
by vexatively
Summary: Twilight-related drabbles written for the community "Twilight100". Some sweet, some angsty... this particular collection features a variety of characters, genres and challenges, all of them 'perfect drabbles'-- short stories of exactly 100 words.
1. Flowers

**Stolen Moments**_  
by **vexatively**_

Challenge #35 : FLOWERS

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**Title: **Human Traditions  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Flowers  
**Words Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Characters: **Edward/Bella**  
**

_Can I talk to you?  
I would never forget something as important—  
Please forgiv—_

"_Please_, don't stop. It's entertaining." Edward's eyes narrowed as he sought out his sister's. "You've been changing your mind constantly; every one of my visions shows you begging for forgiveness."

'_Whipped_' was written all over Alice's face.

"This is none of yo—"

"Edward?"

Seeing who it was, he recoiled from her like struck. "Bella—not my…flowers…kill Emmett…"

His hands were empty. On Valentine's Day.

"Oh, Edward."

At her laughter, he tentatively lifted his head.

She touched his face in exasperation. "You and your human traditions."

* * *

**Title: **Close Enough  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Flowers  
**Words Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Characters: **Edward/Bella, Alice

"_Honestly_, Edward, it's okay. I don't mind."

"I'm going to kill Emmett," he informed her, as stonily as his skin, once he has gotten over the incoherency, the anguish of being anything less than the gentleman he has been raised.

"It's the thought that counts. You know how I feel about presents," she tried to reassure him.

"Bella, you're a horrible liar," chirped Alice. "Which is why I got you these."

"Alice—" Edward started, warningly. Alice had known all along. That Emmett would find the bouquet and…

"I couldn't let your poor Edward despair, could I?"

"Lavender…"

_Close enough._

* * *

**Title: **Smug  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Flowers  
**Words Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Characters: **Rosalie/Emmett**  
**

The fragrant bouquet that was so characteristically thrust at her was ragged, and had probably seen better days. Rosalie couldn't help but think that, had she been human, she would have refused such a present.

The goofy grin that accompanied the flowers made her reconsider.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Rose."

"You _didn't_." She stated this wryly, matter-of-factly because they both knew very well he did.

"You do know that Edward's going to kill you? He planned to give Bella these freesias."

"I know."

Impulsively, uncharacteristically, she pulled Emmett down for a kiss.

Anything to wipe that smug smile off his face.

* * *

**Title: **Loss  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Flowers  
**Words Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Character: **Renée  
**Author's Notes: **Because the little characters of Twilight rarely get any love.

Renée loathes Forks and its rainy-cloudy days with a passion— almost as much as she loathes what the small town represents. Within it is the sheer manifestation of excruciating_ loss._

Still, she can't help but wait. Hope that if she wishes hard enough, that the love, laughter and the happily-ever-after will come back.

Forks took away her heart. First love lost the minute he started the torrid un-affair with his career. Second love lost the minute her daughter gave her heart away.

And Forks withers the petals, innocence of her life like too much sunlight_ (only there's none)._

For _ever_.

* * *

**Title: **Raw  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Flowers  
**Words Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Character: **Phil

She rubs the skin just above her elbow whenever she's tense, he notices. The skin there at times would be chafed raw. It would turn as red as a rose. His rose.

But today is a good day. He wraps his arms around her waist. She stiffens.

"Happy Valentine's Day, darling."

_Not today, Phil,_ she warns him silently; her touch remains gentle.

"I'm your third, right?" He whispers behind her ear and she refuses to meet his eyes.

"Of course, dearest," she says, her voice coming out as hollow as her heart. "I'm happy with you."

_I'm safe with you._


	2. Sunset

**Stolen Moments**_  
by **vexatively**_

Challenge #36 : SUNSET

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**Title: **Five Words  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Sunset  
**Word Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Characters: **Edward, Renée

"You must be Bella's mother."

She turned around; her brow furrowed. Normally, she would have to explain a few times that it was _Bella-not-Isabella_, or that it was _mother-not-sister._ Even to the smart ones. But, as she looked into his eyes— _would Bella have called it butterscotch or ocher or both?_— Renée realized that, just maybe, he can see through disguises as well as her.

"My name is Edward Cullen."

His gaze shifted to her daughter's unconscious body. She could feel the tie between their souls, _tangible_.

And her sun's light faded (_fades_) away into nothing with these five words.

* * *

**  
Title: **Ethereal  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Sunset  
**Words Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Character: **Edward

Just before the sun decided to sink, and succumb to the in-between (_twilight_), a streak blurred in the horizon. The manifestation of color reflected on un-skin and Edward thought that people might— just _might_— mistake him for…

_Ethereal. Celestial. Angelic._

Of course, he knows better.

He was running again, the closest he would ever come to flying. Edward hesitated as he imagined that, yes, he _was _flying and his legs don't have to continuously pump against the hard earth.

It's the closest thing he'll ever know.

It's the only thing he'll ever know._  
_

He will never get his angel's wings.

* * *

**  
Title: **Fair Price  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Sunset  
**Words Count: **100 (plus a bit)  
**Rating: **G  
**Character: **Edward**  
**

Sleep was robbed from him.

It was a fair price, Emmett thought, in exchange for strength.  
It was a fair price, Esme thought, in exchange for life again.  
It was a fair price, Alice thought, in exchange for seeing her family's future.  
It was a fair price, Carlisle thought, in exchange for helping others for eternity.  
It was a fair price, Jasper thought, in exchange for Alice.

Rosalie tried not to think.

He hadn't understood, not really. So he tried to dream, the only way he knew.

But now, he has a whole different type of dreaming.

_He watches Bella sleeping, laughing, stumbling, blushing._

Sun-rises not -sets.

He calls it _hope_.

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**  
Title: **Afterlife**  
Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Sunset  
**Words Count: **100**  
Rating: **G  
**Character: **Edward

"I know… I'm back again. I'm coming here more and more often now, and for a purely selfish reason, I admit."

He paused, sunset setting his hair aflame, and took a deep, wholly unnecessary breath. Force of habit.

"I have to say; when you died, I wasn't quite sure that there was any type of redemption, absolution for mankind. No afterlife. I mean, if there were some higher force, why would good people like Carlisle become vampires? Hence, it was simple. There was no God.

"But I know better now. See, Mother, I love an angel.

"Her name is Bella."

* * *

**Title: **Dread  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Sunset  
**Words Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Characters: **Jacob/Bella  
**Author's Notes:** Pre-Eclipse Battle

"What's the worst that can happen to me, Bells?"

I inwardly feel torn between emotions-- each vying for attention; each of them so unbearably _right_.

It took me forever to realize it. It'll probably take another to say it. But… I love (_love!_) him.

"Come back," I whisper hoarsely.

Jacob leans down, feigning… feigning that what? He couldn't hear me? Still a jerk, despite it all.

"Come back, Jacob. To me."

Grinning like the wolf he was, he bounded off.

I couldn't be more hyperaware of the clamping dread at the pit of my stomach.

_Paris__ falls._

The sun sets.


	3. Skin

**Stolen Moments**_  
by **vexatively**_

Challenge #38 : SKIN

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**Title: **Overcoat  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Skin  
**Word Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Character: **Edward  
**Author's Notes: **During his brief stint in Brazil…

The hand that offers the battered overcoat is persistent. Pouring rain drenches her skin and makes her shiver, though not entirely from the cold.

"I don't need it," you tell her in Portuguese. _I don't deserve the reprieve._

She shakes her head.

Sighing, you take it, sitting down on the pavement.

"Come here. It's yours after all." She complies, brown eyes (just like Bella's) wide, even if her body screams at her to _run away from here_.

You smile then, briefly. Eyes still searching for any traces of flaming red hair, if only to keep your life… your _heart_ alive.

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**Title: **Crimson Eyes  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Skin  
**Word Count: **100 (and a bit)  
**Rating: **PG  
**Character: **Emmett/Rosalie**  
**

The first time Emmett opened his newly crimson eyes, he saw an angel. It didn't make sense, not after the excruciating pain. "Welcome to hell," she told him, through her perfect rosebud lips.

That made even less sense.

The second time Emmett opened his newly crimson eyes (_pretending that the tortured screams were nightmares didn't make them-going-away any easier_), he saw salvation.

"Edward's wrong, you know." Like before, he just looked at her perfect rosebud lips blankly. "You, at least… _you're_ not a monster."

She didn't even wait for his response.

"No monster could look as indecent as you in the sunlight."

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**Title: **Skin Deep  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Skin  
**Word Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Character: **Rosalie  
**Warnings: **Slight BD spoilers.**  
**

"Welcome to our family, Rosalie." _Forever_.

Those words, expressed with the utterly _genuine_ kindness that only Carlisle Cullen can muster, might as well have been the decree that damned her to the deepest pits of hell.

Like the intense doubt that all her new 'family' faced, once left alone, Rosalie _festered_. A raging, gaping wound on her flawless, stone carved heart.

(_But healing comes in the strangest of forms_.)

"Rosalie? It's Bella. Please. You have to help me…"

Rosalie Hale thought that the sun had set long ago.

_Foolish girl… don't you know—?_

The sun always rises in the morning.


	4. Victory

**Stolen Moments**_  
by **vexatively**_

Challenge #43 : VICTORY

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**Title: **Samson and Delilah  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Victory  
**Word Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Characters: **Edward/Bella  
**Author's Notes: **Thoughts on Religion… ish.

"Reading the Bible?" he asked softly, irony not lost on him. Bella looked up from her curled position on the sofa, cheeks flaming red.

"It's just that… something Carlisle said." She shrugged, biting back protests as Edward easily slid her onto his lap.

"A religious vampire," he joked, flashing a half-smile.

"Some of the stories here are _sordid_," Bella insisted. "And confusing, for so-called fairytales. I mean— Samson and Delilah. Wasn't it obvious that she wanted to exploit his weakness? He _lost_."

Edward chuckled.

"Perhaps, love," words chilled her skin, "Delilah _was_ his weakness; he'd rather lose than lose her."

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**  
Title: **Reliving Nightmares  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Victory  
**Word Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Character: **Irina**  
**

She has no idea what exactly drew her here, but her sisters insist on closure so why not find closure where your heart shattered?

"_…fraid I'll catch the biggest one again."_

Echoes. She's heard the voice before… once, long ago in a dream.

"_It doesn't count if you cheat._"

And then Irina sees it… her. Simply exquisite, frozen forever in a state of naïve, innocent youth. She does no more than stare, _firescreams and ashes and skies aflame_, reliving the frightening end. _Mother?_

Pain. Shattered dreams. Revenge.

They meant to punish her mother.

Who had really lost in the end?

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**Title: **Attraction [I]  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Victory  
**Word Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Character: **Jacob  
**Author's Notes: **Very obscure references to 'victory'. :D Nessie pwns?

Once upon a time, Jacob Black couldn't feel his toes. Couldn't feel _anything_, if that made any difference.

But as he saw his mortal enemy repeatedly puncture the girl he loved, futilely trying to animate her lifeless, mangled body (_corpse_), he was acutely aware of the fact that he couldn't have moved for the life of him.

He knew, if he kept looking, the nightmare will stay forever. (_Maybe he wanted it to haunt him forever; the girl he couldn't save._)

_See, Bella… you're kinda my sun, too._

He's lost it to something far colder, far more untouchable than _bloodsuckers._

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**Title: **Attraction [II]  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Victory  
**Word Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Character: **Jacob

He should have laughed, maybe. _Who's the winner now, bloodsucker?__  
_

The second thing that Jacob noticed was the _cold_. He was a werewolf, but the chill at the sight of his lips coming up bloody (_but not venomous_) engulfed him… wholly, completely. It was almost delicious to his too-hot skin, but the horror in front of him effectively burnt any rational thoughts to crumbling ashes._  
_

He should have laughed, maybe. _None of us.__  
_

_Karma really does suck._

He should have been used to salvaging the remains any kind of thoughts. God knows that Bella always has that effect on him.

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**Title: **Attraction [III]  
**Team: **Human  
**Challenge: **Victory  
**Words Count: **100  
**Rating: **G  
**Character: **Jacob

Hatred. The only explanation. Why, despite the overwhelming scent of Bella's death, he lingered, trying to catch a glimpse of the monster.

Hatred pulled him, closer than a lover's breath.

Then— stars threw his existence off balance. His eyes met hers; he could feel her essence stealing his breath away.

As he tries to tear his gaze away from the innocence and the beauty and the stars in her eyes just-after-twilight, Jacob realizes something.

Nothing else matters.

Not winning. Not losing.

Not even Bella.

_The wolf learned that day that the line separating love and hate was excruciatingly thin indeed._


End file.
